Twisted Games (Twisted 2)

I ignored Rhys’s question for now and crouched until I was eye level with the boy.

“It’s okay,” I said gently. I didn’t move any closer, not wanting to spook him further. “We won’t hurt you.”

He clutched what I assumed was his father’s arm tighter. “Is my dad going to die?” he asked in a small voice.

A clog of emotion formed in my throat. He was around my age when my dad died, and—

Stop. This isn’t about you. Focus on the moment.

“The doctors will be here soon, and they’ll fix him right up.” I hoped. The man was fading in and out of consciousness, and blood oozed around him, staining the boy’s sneakers.

Technically, the EMTs were coming, not doctors, but I wasn’t about to explain the distinction to a traumatized kid. “Doctors” sounded more reassuring.

Rhys knelt next to me. “She’s right. The doctors know what they’re doing.” He spoke in a soothing voice I’d never heard from him before, and something squeezed my chest. Hard. “We’ll stay with you until they get here. How does that sound?”

The boy’s lower lip wobbled, but he nodded. “Okay.”

Before we could say anything else, a bright light shone on us, and a voice blared through the park.

“Police! Put your hands up!”

* * *

RHYS

Questions. Medical checkups. More questions, plus a few claps on the back for being a “hero.”

The next hour tested my patience as nothing had before…except for the damned woman in front of me.

“I told you to stay put. It was a simple instruction, princess,” I growled. The sight of her running toward me while the shooter was still out in the open had sent more panic crashing through me than having a gun pointed at my face.

It didn’t matter that I’d disarmed the shooter. What if he had a second gun I’d missed?

Terror raked its claws down my spine.

I could handle getting shot. I couldn’t handle Bridget getting hurt.

“You were shot, Mr. Larsen.” She crossed her arms over her chest. I sat in the back of an open ambulance while she stood before me, stubborn as ever. “You’d already neutralized the gunman, and I thought you were going to die.”

Her voice wobbled at the end, and my anger dissipated.

Other than my Navy buddies, I couldn’t remember the last time anyone really cared about whether I lived or died. But Bridget did, for some unknown reason, and it wasn’t just because I was her bodyguard. I saw it in her eyes and heard it in the faint waver of her usually cool, crisp voice.

And I’d be damned if the knowledge didn’t hit me harder than a bullet to the chest.

“I’m fine. Bullet grazed me, is all. Didn’t even go under the skin.” The EMTs had bandaged me up, and I’d be good as new in two or three weeks.

The shooter had been surprised and fired using instinct, not aim. A quick dodge and I’d escaped what would’ve been a much nastier wound to my shoulder.

The police had hauled him into medical custody. They were still investigating what happened, but from what I’d gathered, the shooter had deliberately targeted the kid’s father. Something about a business deal gone wrong and bankruptcy. The shooter had been high as a kite, to the point where he hadn’t cared about exacting his revenge in a park full of people.

Thankfully, he’d also been so high he kept rambling about how the kid’s father had done him wrong instead of shooting to kill.

The ambulances had taken the kid and his father away a while ago. The father had suffered heavy blood loss, but he’d stabilized and would pull through. The kid was okay too. Traumatized, but alive. I’d made it a point to check on him before they left.

Thank God.

“You were bleeding.” Bridget brushed her fingers over the bandaged wound, her touch searing straight through the gauze into my bones.

I stiffened, and she froze. “Did that hurt?”

“No.” Not in the way she’d meant anyway.

But the way she was looking at me, like she was afraid I might disappear if she blinked? It made my heart ache like she’d ripped off a piece of it and kept it for herself.

“Bet this wasn’t the way you pictured your graduation night going.” I rubbed a hand over my jaw, my mouth twisting into a grimace. “We should’ve gone straight home after dinner.”

I’d used the lame excuse of walking off our food to justify the trip to the park, but in truth, I’d wanted to extend the night because when we woke up, we would go back to what we were. The princess and her bodyguard, a client and her contractor.

It was all we could be, but that hadn’t stopped crazy thoughts from infiltrating my mind during dinner. Thoughts like how I could’ve stayed there with her all night, even though I normally hated answering questions about my life. Thoughts about whether Bridget tasted as sweet as she looked and how much I wanted to strip away her cool demeanor until I reached the fire underneath. Bask in its warmth, let it burn away the rest of the world until we were the only ones left.

Like I said, crazy thoughts. I’d shoved them aside the second they popped up, but they lingered in the back of my mind still, like the lyrics to a catchy song that wouldn’t go away.

My grimace deepened.

Bridget shook her head. “No. It was a good night until…well, this.” She waved her hand around the park. “If we’d gone home, the kid and his dad might have died.”

“Maybe, but I fucked up.” It didn’t happen often, but I could admit it when it did. “My number one priority as a bodyguard is to protect you, not play savior. I should’ve gotten you out of here and left it at that, but…” A muscle rolled in my jaw.

Bridget waited patiently for me to finish. Even with her hair mussed and dirt smearing her dress from when I’d pushed her onto the ground, she could’ve passed for an angel in the fucked-up hell of my life. Blonde hair, ocean eyes, and a glow that had nothing to do with her outer beauty and everything to do with her inner one.

She was too beautiful to be touched by any part of my ugly past, but something compelled me to continue.

“When I was in high school, I knew a kid.” The memories unfolded like a blood-stained film, and a familiar spear of guilt stabbed at my gut. “Not a friend, but the closest thing I had to one. We lived a few blocks away from each other, and we’d hang out at his house on the weekend.” I’d never invited Travis to my house. I hadn’t wanted him to see what it was like living there.

“One day, I went over and saw him getting mugged at gunpoint right in his front yard. His mom was at work, and it was a rough neighborhood, so those things happened. But Travis refused to hand over his watch. It’d been a gift from his old man, who died when he was young. The mugger didn’t take kindly to the refusal and shot him right there in broad daylight. No one, including me, did a damn thing about it. Our neighborhood had two rules if you wanted to survive: one, keep your mouth shut, and two, mind your own business.”

An acrid taste filled my mouth. I remembered the sight and sound of Travis’s body hitting the ground. The blood oozing from his chest, the surprise in his eyes…and the betrayal when he saw me standing there, watching him die. “I went home, threw up, and promised myself I would never be such a coward again.”